Welcome to the Hog Blog, a blog chronicling minor-league baseball in the Lehigh Valley. Tom Housenick, The Morning Call's IronPigs beat writer, has been at The Morning Call since 2008. In a previous lifetime, he was at Lackawanna County Stadium in Moosic talking with future Phillies Jimmy Rollins, Pat Burrell, Shane Victorino and Ryan Howard, among many others.
He’ll now be spending his summers in search of who the Phillies are hoping to be the next Chase Utley and Cole Hamels plus any outfielder who catch and hit. What he really hopes to find are the next Mariano Rivera, Todd Helton and Jim Thome --- great human beings who happened to be great at this sport.
He spent the last five years covering Colonial League football, college basketball and high school track & field.

If I was Mike Fontenot, I'm not sure I' would've been in a very good mood on the 90-minute bus ride from Indianapolis to Louisville Thursday afternoon.

All he's done done since joining the IronPigs is hit .319 in 14 games, with six doubles and six RBIs. He's got a .373 on-base percentage and a .447 slugging percentage.

Add the home run that's in limbo because of Friday's suspended game with Charlotte (it will become official later this month when the game is completed in Charlotte), he's hitting .324 with a .510 slugging percentage; Nobody on the team has a higher batting average, and only Erik Kratz has a higher slugging percentage.

He's also adequately played three positions -- second, short and third.

Yet Hector Luna, not Fonteonot is heading for Citizens Bank Park.

Nothing against Luna, he's a roll right now, with a seven-game hitting streak, and he's shown some pop in his bat recently after a two-week slide.

But when that game becomes official, Fontenot's got just as many home runs, two less doubles (8-6), over half as many hits (29-16) and RBIs (12-7) as Luna does in almost twice as many at-bats (106-49). And Fontenot's average, on-base percentage andd slugging percentage are all higher than his are right now (.276, .313, 396).

Luna did have a strong major league camp in Clearwater -- Charlie Manuel even sent him to some minor league games to let him play the outfield with the idea that he could fill in out there as well -- and almost made the opening day roster.

Still, when the Phillies signed Fontenot after he was released by the Giants this spring, they were looking under every rock and in every corner to find options to fill in until Chase Utley returns (or is it if he returns). It would seem Fontenot showed he's worthy of being considered.

Maybe with Michael Martinez nearing the end of his recovery from a broken foot in spring training, the Phillies feel the two would basically be filling the same roles and that Luna would give them something Fontenot wouldn't..

But based on numbers, I'm not sure what that would be.

Or perhaps they just felt that Fontenot's sample size with the IronPigs was a little too small.

It would be interesting to hear the thought process that went into the decision to select Fontenot over Luna.

its about using the options a player has available, Fontenot has NONE and would be claimed when returned to the pigs...rather risk losing Luna than Fontenot, especially if Fontenot is needed long term during the season